Sri Lanka Education Forum

Universities, from Nalanda in present-day Bihar to those in Bologna and Harvard, emerged from religious contexts. It is therefore appropriate to look to religious context for guidance on how to reform the university system. The solution to our problems lies in the bringing of upasampada from Thailand (Siam) in the 18th century and from Burma (Ramanna and Amarapura) in the 19th century. The problem Sri Lanka’s universities no longer qualify to be called universities. Some say the cause is students; others say it is political interference. But a university is no different from any ...

University non-academics have been on and off strike for quite sometime. According Ministry estimates the lost working days amount to an unproductive expenditure of RS: 2540 lakhs or a quarter of a billion. The total operating budget for the university system is about Rs: 8 bilion. It is easy to blame the non-academics, but as correctly pointed out in an editorial in the Lankadeepa, many days of work were lost also due to students attacking each other and other miscellaneous misdemeanors. It is about time we put a ruppee value on these disturbances and attach a name to each loss--the ...

Anisha Gupta Senior Communication Associate School Choice Campaign http://schoolchoice.in/campaign/campaign_updates.php School Choice Campaign is directly addressing parents through mass outreach programmes and organising their inherent demand for school choice. We are also taking school choice ideas and ways to implement them to all levels of the government through our political outreach ...

 A comment by one of our readers in another thread prompted us to bring this sensitive issue for discussion.  This input (text and cartoon) is from Tamilnation.org is just to start the discussion. We not necessarily endorse it or otherwise. ___________________________ "Everyone has the right to education... higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit" - Article 26.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights "In 1971, a system of standardisation of marks was introduced for admissions to the universities, obviously directed against Tamil-medium students (referred to earlier). K.M. de Silva describes it as follows: 'The qualifying mark for ...

The universities are back in to utter chaos. Nothing to worry. Looks like we have a competent minister of Higher Education who knows university administration as the back of his hand. Why he does not put his theories into practice is the million dollar question. Was it George Bernard Shaw who said, those who can do; cannot teach? ___________________________________________ Some relevant thoughts on university administration Prof. Wiswa WARNAPALA, Minister of Higher Education UNIVERSITY ADMINSTRATION: When discussing certain aspects of University adminstration in Sri Lanka, I would like to distinguish it from Public Adminstration. Firstly, I would like to ...

Now we know why the poor people in the country (like Magi akka who sells kadala for the students of Horowpathana Vidyalaya and Haramani ayya who plucks coconuts) cannot speak good English. They have not been taught English via satellite.  Anyway, this looks like a worthwhile effort. When everything else fails why not try satellite medium?  ____________________ Digital talking books for the visually handicapped, reducing gender based violence through ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and teaching English to the rural populace through satellite technology are some of the programmes that are underway through the Partnership Assistance Programme (PAP) of the Information and Communications ...

By Chathuri Dissanayake and Isuri Kaviratne   As student clashes and student-management disputes increase in the State universities, the quality and standard of the local universities was being questioned with university academic activities being disrupted regularly and campuses hit by academic staff shortages. This week Rajarata University students launched a hunger strike demanding improvement to basic amenities such as hostel facilities and provision of lecturers and lecture halls. Last week’s clashes between Arts and Science faculty students in the Colombo University resulted in hospitalization of two students prompting the authorities to close the two faculties for the week. The Arts-Science student dispute in ...

After we have published the news item about Neasala, we have received some interesting photos from one of our regular readers who wish to remain anonymous. We publish only four of his photographs three showing the now defunct Siltulpawwa Nenasala and the last one a set of prospective users. A plaque says this Nenasala was opened on June 24, 2005.  Our reader writes… I see no logic why anybody wanted to have a tele centre at a place like Situlpawwa. It is 13 km from Kataragama, (on a very difficult road that takes 2 hours to cover that distance) in the middle of a jungle, with no ...

It is almost fifty years after the schools takeover circular of 1961. Schools for the poor were always fully state-assisted. Elite schools then were administered by independent boards and funded through a combination of private benevolence and state assistance. Elite schools were elite because children of the elite attended those giving the schools many additional benefits. Ironically, almost fifty years after the free education initiative, things have not changed much. Schools that the poor attend are still fully state-assisted. Elite schools, both public (and some private) are, for all practical purposes, funded by a combination of private and state funds. ...

Once the renowned economist Milton Friedman said, "Let parents choose to educate their children wherever they wish at the taxpayer's expense. The principle of this idea is simple and it said, "the state pays; parents choose; schools compete standards rise; everybody gains." This shows that even the fathers of neo-liberal economic policies advocated free education but not what we have understood and are ready to protect sacrificing even lives. Sri Lanka had many achievements to be proud of and one of them is the high standard of education. According to statistics the higher literacy rate around 90%, is the highest in the ...